Knock, Knock, Knock Page #5

"Knock, Knock, Knock" is a lesser-known work by the acclaimed Russian author Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, known for his deep insights into human nature and societal dynamics. This narrative centers around the themes of love, existential reflection, and the complexities of personal relationships within the backdrop of 19th-century Russia. Turgenev’s lyrical prose and keen psychological exploration invite readers to delve into the characters’ motivations and emotions, making it a poignant examination of life’s enduring questions.

								

such exaggerated language, with such theatrical gestures, such
melodramatic movements of her head and rolling of her eyes, that I
thought to myself, "How false and affected that lady is! She did not
love her son at all!" And a week afterwards I heard that the poor
woman had really gone out of her mind. Since then I have become much
more careful in my judgments and have had far less confidence in my
own impressions.

X

The story which Tyeglev told me was, briefly, as follows. He had
living in Petersburg, besides his influential uncle, an aunt, not
influential but wealthy. As she had no children of her own she had
adopted a little girl, an orphan, of the working class, given her a
liberal education and treated her like a daughter. She was called
Masha. Tyeglev saw her almost every day. It ended in their falling in
love with one another and Masha's giving herself to him. This was
discovered. Tyeglev's aunt was fearfully incensed, she turned the
luckless girl out of her house in disgrace, and moved to Moscow where
she adopted a young lady of noble birth and made her her heiress. On
her return to her own relations, poor and drunken people, Masha's lot
was a bitter one. Tyeglev had promised to marry her and did not keep
his promise. At his last interview with her, he was forced to speak
out: she wanted to know the truth and wrung it out of him. "Well," she
said, "if I am not to be your wife, I know what there is left for me
to do." More than a fortnight had passed since that last interview.

"I never for a moment deceived myself as to the meaning of her last
words," added Tyeglev. "I am certain that she has put an end to her
life and ... and that it was her voice, that it was she
calling me ... to follow her there ... I recognised her
voice.... Well, there is but one end to it."

"But why didn't you marry her, Ilya Stepanitch?" I asked. "You ceased
to love her?"

"No; I still love her passionately."

At this point I stared at Tyeglev. I remembered another friend of
mine, a very intelligent man, who had a very plain wife, neither
intelligent nor rich and was very unhappy in his marriage. When
someone in my presence asked him why he had married and suggested that
it was probably for love, he answered, "Not for love at all. It simply
happened." And in this case Tyeglev loved a girl passionately and did
not marry her. Was it for the same reason, then?

"Why don't you marry her, then?" I asked again.

Tyeglev's strange, drowsy eyes strayed over the table.

"There is ... no answering that ... in a few words," he began,
hesitating. "There were reasons.... And besides, she was ... a
working-class girl. And then there is my uncle.... I was obliged to
consider him, too."

"Your uncle?" I cried. "But what the devil do you want with your uncle
whom you never see except at the New Year when you go to congratulate
him? Are you reckoning on his money? But he has got a dozen children
of his own!"

I spoke with heat.... Tyeglev winced and flushed ... flushed unevenly,
in patches.

"Don't lecture me, if you please," he said dully. "I don't justify
myself, however. I have ruined her life and now I must pay the
penalty...."

His head sank and he was silent. I found nothing to say, either.

XI

So we sat for a quarter of an hour. He looked away--I looked at
him--and I noticed that the hair stood up and curled above his
forehead in a peculiar way, which, so I have heard from an army doctor
who had had a great many wounded pass through his hands, is always a
symptom of intense overheating of the brain.... The thought struck me
again that fate really had laid a heavy hand on this man and that his
comrades were right in seeing something "fatal" in him. And yet
inwardly I blamed him. "A working-class girl!" I thought, "a fine sort
of aristocrat you are yourself!"

"Perhaps you blame me, Ridel," Tyeglev began suddenly, as though
guessing what I was thinking. "I am very ... unhappy myself. But what
to do? What to do?"

He leaned his chin on his hand and began biting the broad flat nails
of his short, red fingers, hard as iron.

"What I think, Ilya Stepanitch, is that you ought first to make
certain whether your suppositions are correct.... Perhaps your lady
love is alive and well." ("Shall I tell him the real explanation of
the taps?" flashed through my mind. "No--later.")

"She has not written to me since we have been in camp," observed
Tyeglev.

"That proves nothing, Ilya Stepanitch."

Tyeglev waved me off. "No! she is certainly not in this world. She
called me."

He suddenly turned to the window. "Someone is knocking again!"

I could not help laughing. "No, excuse me, Ilya Stepanitch! This time
it is your nerves. You see, it is getting light. In ten minutes the
sun will be up--it is past three o'clock--and ghosts have no power in
the day."

Tyeglev cast a gloomy glance at me and muttering through his teeth
"good-bye," lay down on the bench and turned his back on me.

I lay down, too, and before I fell asleep I remember I wondered why
Tyeglev was always hinting at ... suicide. What nonsense! What humbug!
Of his own free will he had refused to marry her, had cast her off ...
and now he wanted to kill himself! There was no sense in it! He could
not resist posing!

With these thoughts I fell into a sound sleep and when I opened my
eyes the sun was already high in the sky--and Tyeglev was not in the
hut.

He had, so his servant said, gone to the town.

XII

I spent a very dull and wearisome day. Tyeglev did not return to
dinner nor to supper; I did not expect my brother. Towards evening a
thick fog came on again, thicker even than the day before. I went to
bed rather early. I was awakened by a knocking under the window.

It was my turn to be startled!

The knock was repeated and so insistently distinct that one could have
no doubt of its reality. I got up, opened the window and saw Tyeglev.
Wrapped in his great-coat, with his cap pulled over his eyes, he stood
motionless.

"Ilya Stepanitch!" I cried, "is that you? I gave up expecting you.
Come in. Is the door locked?"

Tyeglev shook his head. "I do not intend to come in," he pronounced in
a hollow tone. "I only want to ask you to give this letter to the
commanding officer to-morrow."

He gave me a big envelope sealed with five seals. I was
astonished--however, I took the envelope mechanically. Tyeglev at once
walked away into the middle of the road.

"Stop! stop!" I began. "Where are you going? Have you only just come?
And what is the letter?"

"Do you promise to deliver it?" said Tyeglev, and moved away a few
steps further. The fog blurred the outlines of his figure. "Do you
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